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Second of all, he'd kinda been under the impression that she'd already decided not to accept Intar's offer. With how well the economy seemed to be recovering, it probably wasn't necessary anymore, right?

Then again, he wasn't an economist. And with how distracted he'd been lately, he was sure that the Queen had a much better grasp on that whole situation right now than he did. So if she was still considering it as an option, then maybe the recovery wasn't going quite as well he'd thought.

Or maybe there was some other factor he didn't know about.

Whatever the case, Abbas ended up advising her against taking the offer, though he admitted to harboring significant bias.

"It is nothing against Intar, mind you," he clarified. "At heart, I am simply an independence-loving man. My family instilled that in me at a very young age, and I do not think it is ever going to change. Nor would I wish it to."

The Queen's smile was a soft one. "The Sandlords of Sair declared independence from Calthos two hundred years ago, yes?"

'It was actually closer to three hundred,' said Worwal, 'but Sair wasn't officially recognized as a nation until about two hundred and twenty years ago, yeah.'

The Queen nodded while keeping her eyes on the Sunsmith. "And you yourself are... how old, Lord Abbas?"

"One hundred and fifty-four."

"Goodness."

"My parents were among the founders." His eyes dropped to the table. He fell quiet.

Hector didn't need him to say more in order to guess what was going through his head, right now. The guy had personally lived through the majority of Sair's lifespan as a nation. And it was directly threatened.

"...Sair may still be relatively young," said the Queen, "but that region is not. And your people are not. I may not be quite the student of history that my husband is, but as I recall, your kin have survived far worse than this."